


Discard from the Bestiary

by branewurms



Category: The Etched City
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Weird Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-07
Updated: 2008-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branewurms/pseuds/branewurms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: "Beth, the crocodilian baby, and its slave prostitute mother".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discard from the Bestiary

It had the body of a crocodile and the head of a man, and a lotus blossom grew out from its belly like a parasite. Its face was noble and stately, a face that expected devotion as merely its due.

She had intended the thing for her bestiary, but she could think of no name to give it. Looking at her sketch, she imagined its leathery hide printed in vivid emerald ink, its face olive-skinned and blue-eyed, framed in hair of darkest sable, and she asked it what its name was. It stared back silently and would not tell her.

So next she drew out its parentage: a river god with the body of a man and the head of a crocodile, and a proud Lusan whore. The mother was very young, hardly more than a child, but the world had aged her prematurely and her face was lined and haggard. Her eyes, however, were clear, her gaze hard and cold as steel. These were the eyes of a queen.

She imagined the girl's dusky body made all of river silt, shifting and flowing as the currents passed through her, and wondered whether she would be proud of the strange fruit that had dropped from her womb, or horrified.

In the end Beth found no name for the creature, and, losing interest, discarded it; but she kept the sketches of the whore.


End file.
